I've been reading 'Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan', by Lafcadio Hearn, which was written in the late 1800s, and came upon three sections in Chapter 11 that deal specifically with Japanese toys of that time period, and legends associated with them, which I found interesting and thought I'd share. Who knows, maybe his words will inspire you with an idea for a custom toy of your own.

Chapter 11, Sec. 9

Vast as the courts of the Oho-yashiro are, the crowd within them is nowso dense that one must move very slowly, for the whole population ofKitzuki and its environs has been attracted here by the matsuri. All aremaking their way very gently toward a little shrine built upon an islandin the middle of an artificial lake and approached by a narrow causeway.This little shrine, which I see now for the first time (Kitzuki templebeing far too large a place to be all seen and known in a single visit),is the Shrine of Tenjin. As the sound of a waterfall is the sound of theclapping of hands before it, and myriads of nin, and bushels of handfulsof rice, are being dropped into the enormous wooden chest there placedto receive the offerings. Fortunately this crowd, like all Japanesecrowds, is so sympathetically yielding that it is possible to traverseit slowly in any direction, and thus to see all there is to be seen.After contributing my mite to the coffer of Tenjin, I devote myattention to the wonderful display of toys in the outer counts.

At almost every temple festival in Japan there is a great sale of toys,usually within the count itself--a miniature street of small boothsbeing temporarily erected for this charming commence. Every matsuri is achildren's holiday. No mother would think of attending a temple-festivalwithout buying her child a toy: even the poorest mother can afford it;for the price of the toys sold in a temple court varies from one-fifthof one sen [3] or Japanese cent, to three or four sen; toys worth somuch as five sen being rarely displayed at these little shops. But cheapas they are, these frail playthings are full of beauty andsuggestiveness, and, to one who knows and loves Japan, infinitely moreinteresting than the costliest inventions of a Parisian toy-manufacturer. Many of them, however, would be utterly incomprehensibleto an English child. Suppose we peep at a few of them.

Here is a little wooden mallet, with a loose tiny ball fitted into asocket at the end of the handle. This is for the baby to suck. On eitherend of the head of the mallet is painted the mystic tomoye--thatChinese symbol, resembling two huge commas so united as to make aperfect circle, which you may have seen on the title-page of Mr.Lowell's beautiful Soul of the Far East. To you, however, this littlewooden mallet would seem in all probability just a little wooden malletand nothing more. But to the Japanese child it is full of suggestions.It is the mallet of the Great Deity of Kitzuki, Ohokuni-nushi-no-Kami--vulgarly called Daikoku--the God of Wealth, who, by one stroke of hishammer, gives fortune to his worshippers.

Perhaps this tiny drum, of a form never seen in the Occident (tsudzumi),or this larger drum with a mitsudomoye, or triple-comma symbol, paintedon each end, might seem to you without religious signification; but bothare models of drums used in the Shinto and the Buddhist temples. Thisqueer tiny table is a miniature sambo: it is upon such a table thatofferings are presented to the gods. This curious cap is a model of thecap of a Shinto priest. Here is a toy miya, or Shinto shrine, fourinches high. This bunch of tiny tin bells attached to a wooden handlemight seem to you something corresponding to our Occidental tin rattles;but it is a model of the sacred suzu used by the virgin priestess in herdance before the gods. This face of a smiling chubby girl, with twospots upon her forehead-a mask of baked clay--is the traditional imageof Ame-no-uzume-no-mikoto, commonly called Otafuku, whose merrylaughter lured the Goddess of the Sun out of the cavern of darkness. Andhere is a little Shinto priest in full hieratic garb: when this littlestring between his feet is pulled, he claps his hands as if in prayer.

Hosts of other toys are here--mysterious to the uninitiated European,but to the Japanese child full of delightful religious meaning. In thesefaiths of the Far East there is little of sternness or grimness--theKami are but the spirits of the fathers of the people; the Buddhas andthe Bosatsu were men. Happily the missionaries have not succeeded as yetin teaching the Japanese to make religion a dismal thing. These godssmile for ever: if you find one who frowns, like Fudo, the frown seemsbut half in earnest; it is only Emma, the Lord of Death, who somewhatappals. Why religion should be considered too awful a subject forchildren to amuse themselves decently with never occurs to the commonJapanese mind. So here we have images of the gods and saints for toys--Tenjin, the Deity of Beautiful Writing--and Uzume, the laughter-loving-and Fukusuke, like a happy schoolboy--and the Seven Divinities ofGood Luck, in a group--and Fukurojin, the God of Longevity, with headso elongated that only by the aid of a ladder can his barber shave thetop of it--and Hotei, with a belly round and huge as a balloon--andEbisu, the Deity of Markets and of fishermen, with a tai-fish under hisarm--and Daruma, ancient disciple of Buddha, whose legs were worn offby uninterrupted meditation.

Here likewise are many toys which a foreigner could scarcely guess themeaning of, although they have no religious signification. Such is thislittle badger, represented as drumming upon its own belly with bothforepaws. The badger is believed to be able to use its belly like adrum, and is credited by popular superstition with various supernaturalpowers. This toy illustrates a pretty fairy-tale about some hunter whospared a badger's life and was rewarded by the creature with a wonderfuldinner and a musical performance. Here is a hare sitting on the end ofthe handle of a wooden pestle which is set horizontally upon a pivot. Bypulling a little string, the pestle is made to rise and fall as if movedby the hare. If you have been even a week in Japan you will recognisethe pestle as the pestle of a kometsuki, or rice-cleaner, who works itby treading on the handle. But what is the hare? This hare is the Hare-in-the-Moon, called Usagi-no-kometsuki: if you look up at the moon on aclear night you can see him cleaning his rice.

Now let us see what we can discover in the way of cheap ingenuities.

Tombo, 'the Dragon-Fly.' Merely two bits of wood joined together in theform of a T. The lower part is a little round stick, about as thick as amatch, but twice as long; the upper piece is flat, and streaked withpaint. Unless you are accustomed to look for secrets, you would scarcelybe able to notice that the flat piece is trimmed along two edges at aparticular angle. Twirl the lower piece rapidly between the palms ofboth hands, and suddenly let it go. At once the strange toy risesrevolving in the air, and then sails away slowly to quite a distance,performing extraordinary gyrations, and imitating exactly--to the eyeat least--the hovering motion of a dragon-fly. Those little streaks ofpaint you noticed upon the top-piece now reveal their purpose; as thetombo darts hither and thither, even the tints appear to be those of areal dragon-fly; and even the sound of the flitting toy imitates thedragon-fly's hum. The principle of this pretty invention is much likethat of the boomerang; and an expert can make his tombo, after flyingacross a large room, return into his hand. All the tombo sold, however,are not as good as this one; we have been lucky. Price, one-tenth of onecent!

Here is a toy which looks like a bow of bamboo strung with wire. Thewire, however, is twisted into a corkscrew spiral. On this spiral a pairof tiny birds are suspended by a metal loop. When the bow is heldperpendicularly with the birds at the upper end of the string, theydescend whirling by their own weight, as if circling round one another;and the twittering of two birds is imitated by the sharp grating of themetal loop upon the spiral wire. One bird flies head upward, and theother tail upward. As soon as they have reached the bottom, reverse thebow, and they will recommence their wheeling flight. Price, two cents--because the wire is dear.

O-Saru, the 'Honourable Monkey.' [4] A little cotton monkey, with a bluehead and scarlet body, hugging a bamboo rod. Under him is a bamboospring; and when you press it, he runs up to the top of the rod. Price,one-eighth of one cent.

O-Saru. Another Honourable Monkey. This one is somewhat more complex inhis movements, and costs a cent. He runs up a string, hand over hand,when you pull his tail.

Tori-Kago. A tiny gilded cage, with a bird in it, and plum flowers.Press the edges of the bottom of the cage, and a minuscule wind-instrument imitates the chirping of the bird. Price, one cent.

Karuwazashi, the Acrobat. A very loose-jointed wooden boy clinging withboth hands to a string stretched between two bamboo sticks, which arecuriously rigged together in the shape of an open pair of scissors.Press the ends of the sticks at the bottom; and the acrobat tosses hislegs over the string, seats himself upon it, and finally turns asomersault. Price, one-sixth of one cent.

Kobiki, the Sawyer. A figure of a Japanese workman, wearing only afundoshi about his loins, and standing on a plank, with a long saw inhis hands. If you pull a string below his feet, he will go to work ingood earnest, sawing the plank. Notice that he pulls the saw towardshim, like a true Japanese, instead of pushing it from him, as our owncarpenters do. Price, one-tenth of one cent.

Chie-no-ita, the 'Intelligent Boards,' or better, perhaps, 'The Planksof Intelligence.' A sort of chain composed of about a dozen flat squarepieces of white wood, linked together by ribbons. Hold the thingperpendicularly by one end-piece; then turn the piece at right angles tothe chain; and immediately all the other pieces tumble over each otherin the most marvellous way without unlinking. Even an adult can amusehimself for half an hour with this: it is a perfect trompe-l'oeil inmechanical adjustment. Price, one cent.

Kitsune-Tanuki. A funny flat paper mask with closed eyes. If you pull apasteboard slip behind it, it will open its eyes and put out a tongue ofsurprising length. Price, one-sixth of one cent.

Chin. A little white dog, with a collar round its neck. It is in theattitude of barking. From a Buddhist point of view, I should think thistoy somewhat immoral. For when you slap the dog's head, it utters asharp yelp, as of pain. Price, one sen and five rin. Rather dear.

Fuki-agari-koboshi, the Wrestler Invincible. This is still dearer; forit is made of porcelain, and very nicely coloured The wrestler squatsupon his hams. Push him down in any direction, he always returns of hisown accord to an erect position. Price, two sen.

Oroga-Heika-Kodomo, the Child Reverencing His Majesty the Emperor. AJapanese schoolboy with an accordion in his hands, singing and playingthe national anthem, or Kimiga. There is a little wind-bellows at thebottom of the toy; and when you operate it, the boy's arms move as ifplaying the instrument, and a shrill small voice is heard. Price, onecent and a half.

Jishaku. This, like the preceding, is quite a modern toy. A small woodenbox containing a magnet and a tiny top made of a red wooden button witha steel nail driven through it. Set the top spinning with a twirl of thefingers; then hold the magnet over the nail, and the top will leap up tothe magnet and there continue to spin, suspended in air. Price, onecent.

It would require at least a week to examine them all. Here is a modelspinning-wheel, absolutely perfect, for one-fifth of one cent. Here arelittle clay tortoises which swim about when you put them into water--one rin for two. Here is a box of toy-soldiers--samurai in full armour--nine rin only. Here is a Kaze-Kuruma, or wind-wheel--a wooden whistlewith a paper wheel mounted before the orifice by which the breath isexpelled, so that the wheel turns furiously when the whistle is blown--three rin. Here is an Ogi, a sort of tiny quadruple fan sliding in asheath. When expanded it takes the shape of a beautiful flower--onerin.

The most charming of all these things to me, however, is a tiny doll--O-Hina-San (Honourable Miss Hina)--or beppin ('beautiful woman'). Thebody is a phantom, only--a flat stick covered with a paper kimono--butthe head is really a work of art. A pretty oval face with softlyshadowed oblique eyes--looking shyly downward--and a wonderful maidencoiffure, in which the hair is arranged in bands and volutes andellipses and convolutions and foliole curlings most beautiful andextraordinary. In some respects this toy is a costume model, for itimitates exactly the real coiffure of Japanese maidens and brides. Butthe expression of the face of the beppin is, I think, the greatattraction of the toy; there is a shy, plaintive sweetness about itimpossible to describe, but deliciously suggestive of a real Japanesetype of girl-beauty. Yet the whole thing is made out of a littlecrumpled paper, coloured with a few dashes of the brush by an experthand. There are no two O-Hina-San exactly alike out of millions; andwhen you have become familiar by long residence with Japanese types, anysuch doll will recall to you some pretty face that you have seen. Theseare for little girls. Price, five rin.

Chapter 11, Sec. 10

Here let me tell you something you certainly never heard of before inrelation to Japanese dolls--not the tiny O-Hina-San I was just speakingabout, but the beautiful life-sized dolls representing children of twoor three years old; real toy-babes which, although far more cheaply andsimply constructed than our finer kinds of Western dolls, become, underthe handling of a Japanese girl, infinitely more interesting. Such dollsare well dressed, and look so life-like--little slanting eyes, shavenpates, smiles, and all!--that as seen from a short distance the besteyes might be deceived by them. Therefore in those stock photographs ofJapanese life, of which so many thousands are sold in the open ports,the conventional baby on the mother's back is most successfullyrepresented by a doll. Even the camera does not betray the substitution.And if you see such a doll, though held quite close to you, being madeby a Japanese mother to reach out his hands, to move its little barefeet, and to turn its head, you would be almost afraid to venture aheavy wager that it was only a doll. Even after having closely examinedthe thing, you would still, I fancy, feel a little nervous at being leftalone with it, so perfect the delusion of that expert handling.

Now there is a belief that some dolls do actually become alive.

Formerly the belief was less rare than it is now. Certain dolls werespoken of with a reverence worthy of the Kami, and their owners wereenvied folk. Such a doll was treated like a real son or daughter: it wasregularly served with food; it had a bed, and plenty of nice clothes,and a name. If in the semblance of a girl, it was O-Toku-San; if in thatof a boy, Tokutaro-San. It was thought that the doll would become angryand cry if neglected, and that any ill-treatment of it would bring ill-fortune to the house. And, moreover, it was believed to possesssupernatural powers of a very high order.

In the family of one Sengoku, a samurai of Matsue, there was a Tokutaro-San which had a local reputation scarcely inferior to that of Kishibojin--she to whom Japanese wives pray for offspring. And childless couplesused to borrow that doll, and keep it for a time--ministering unto it--and furnish it with new clothes before gratefully returning it to itsowners. And all who did so, I am assured, became parents, according totheir heart's desire. 'Sengoku's doll had a soul.' There is even alegend that once, when the house caught fire, the TokutarO-San ran outsafely into the garden of its own accord!

The idea about such a doll seems to be this: The new doll is only adoll. But a doll which is preserved for a great many years in onefamily, [5] and is loved and played with by generations of children,gradually acquires a soul. I asked a charming Japanese girl: 'How can adoll live?'

'Why,' she answered, 'if you love it enough, it will live!'

What is this but Renan's thought of a deity in process of evolution,uttered by the heart of a child?

Chapter 11, Sec. 11

But even the most beloved dolls are worn out at last, or get broken inthe course of centuries. And when a doll must be considered quite dead,its remains are still entitled to respect. Never is the corpse of a dollirreverently thrown away. Neither is it burned or cast into pure runningwater, as all sacred objects of the miya must be when they have ceasedto be serviceable. And it is not buried. You could not possibly imaginewhat is done with it.

It is dedicated to the God Kojin, [6]--a somewhat mysterious divinity,half-Buddhist, half-Shinto. The ancient Buddhist images of Kojinrepresented a deity with many arms;--the Shinto Kojin of Izumo has, Ibelieve, no artistic representation whatever. But in almost everyShinto, and also in many Buddhist, temple grounds, is planted the treecalled enoki [7] which is sacred to him, and in which he is supposed bythe peasantry to dwell; for they pray before the enoki always to Kojin.And there is usually a small shrine placed before the tree, and a littletorii also. Now you may often see laid upon such a shrine of Kojin, orat the foot of his sacred tree, or in a hollow thereof--if there be anyhollow--pathetic remains of dolls. But a doll is seldom given to Kojinduring the lifetime of its possessor. When you see one thus exposed, youmay be almost certain that it was found among the effects of some poordead woman--the innocent memento of her girlhood, perhaps even also ofthe girlhood of her mother and of her mother's mother.

Notes for Chapter Eleven

[3] There are ten rin to one sen, and ten mon to one rin, on one hundredto one sen. The majority of the cheap toys sold at the matsuri cost fromtwo to nine rin. The rin is a circular copper coin with a square hole inthe middle for stringing purposes.

[4] Why the monkey is so respectfully mentioned in polite speech, I donot exactly know; but I think that the symbolical relation of themonkey, both to Buddhism and to Shinto, may perhaps account for the useof the prefix 'O' (honourable) before its name.

[5] As many fine dolls really are. The superior class of O-Hina-San, suchas figure in the beautiful displays of the O-Hina-no-Matsuri at richhomes, are heirlooms. Dolls are not given to children to break; andJapanese children seldom break them. I saw at a Doll's Festival in thehouse of the Governor of Izumo, dolls one hundred years old-charmingfigurines in ancient court costume.

[6] Not to be confounded with Koshin, the God of Roads.

[7] Celtis Wilidenowiana. Sometimes, but rarely, a pine or other tree issubstituted for the enoki.